THE ELIAN GONZALEZ CASE: COUNTING THE COST

By RICK BRAGG

Published: April 27, 2000

MIAMI, April 26—
At the corner of Flagler Street and 22nd Avenue, a procession of cars filled with teenagers, salsa music blaring, crawled slowly across the intersection with Cuban flags fluttering from radio antennas and a big American flag flying upside down, in scorn.

In Little Havana, in the days since Elian Gonzalez was taken from his Miami relatives' home in a blur of tear gas and armed federal agents, upside-down flags and disdain for the United States are fashionable.

As a city, ''we are more divided than we have ever been,'' said Max Castro, the senior research associate at the Dante B. Fascell North-South Center at the University of Miami, and an expert on the exile community.

Almost everyone involved in the case lost something in the five-month standoff and the three-minute raid on his relatives' home, say legal, immigration and political experts, including his Miami family, the exiles who made Elian a symbol of freedom, the two mayors who sided with the exiles over the government, and -- because of the nature of the raid -- the government itself.

And the clear winner, said the experts, is the man exiles here see as the devil himself. ''Fidel Castro has taken great advantage,'' said Osmel Lugo, a political dissident jailed in Cuba until 1999.

It is not that Mr. Castro did very much to profit from the case. Others, even those who hate him most, did his work for him, said experts on Cuba and the exile community.

The exiles and the family that could not bear to give up the child, no matter how well-intentioned their refusal, gave Mr. Castro material to prop up his sagging revolution and have turned American support from their cause.

And Mayor Alex Penelas of Miami-Dade County and Mayor Joseph Carollo of Miami, though they may have heartened many of their constituents by siding with the exile community against the government, stumbled on the national stage.

''The clear losers are the hard-liners in the Cuban exile community who conducted themselves in such a way as to antagonize and alienate U.S. public opinion,'' said Wayne Smith, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington who served as a diplomat in Cuba.

''They seemed to believe they could take the law into their own hands, defy the law, defy the federal government, and get away with it.''

Few people doubt, political and immigration experts said, that Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez and the boy's cousin Marisleysis Gonzalez both loved Elian and were heartbroken when he was taken. But, even if a last-minute compromise was close, as the Miami family and others said, the family clearly had little credibility with a frustrated Attorney General Janet Reno.

''Lazaro Gonzalez said a number of times they would have to take the boy by force,'' Mr. Smith said. ''Well, they did. I think U.S. public opinion was turned off by them.''

Despite criticism that the government used excessive force in the raid, Americans have overwhelmingly approved of it in poll after poll.

A USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll released on Monday showed that 60 percent of respondents approved, and 62 percent believed that the Miami relatives would not have turned the boy over peacefully if the agents had not been armed.

Only 28 percent of respondents said that Congress should hold hearings on the raid, and only 25 percent said they believed that Elian should remain in the United States.

Mr. Penelas and Mr. Carollo had, before and after, harshly criticized efforts to remove the boy, refused to let their police help in the effort and made speeches that left no doubt they would not cooperate with the government, drawing condemnations from around the country.

So, in a startling snub, federal officials did not alert them to the raid, apparently because those officials felt they could not trust them. For the top elected officials in an American city to be so ignored is unusual, said political experts.

''The government just went around them,'' said Lisandro Perez, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.

If the two mayors plan to seek office only in South Florida, where Cuban-Americans remain the dominant cultural, political and economic force, they probably did not hurt themselves, political experts agree.

Mr. Carollo, in a city dominated by Cuban-Americans, ''solidified his position,'' said Dario Moreno, an associate professor of political science at Florida International University.

But, said political experts, television images of smoking tires and trash bins burning in the streets and the police scuffling with violent demonstrators may halt any larger political ambitions at the Miami-Dade County line for both mayors.

Mr. Penelas, the young mayor of Miami-Dade County, had seemed destined for a political career beyond Miami, but was condemned by dozens of editorial pages around the nation, and by whites, blacks and other Hispanics in his own county. ''He hurt his political career,'' Mr. Moreno said, though he added that it was too soon to write the mayor's political obituary.

Both mayors have said over and over they did what was right, what the majority of constituents wanted. But in doing so they ignored almost everyone except Cuban-Americans.

''Some people really became invested in Elian remaining here,'' Mr. Castro, the researcher, said. ''Other people felt alienated, felt the city was being taken over by one case.''

The long-standing power in the Cuban exile community, the Cuban American National Foundation, and its chairman, Jorge Mas Santos, tried but failed to broker a deal for a more peaceful transfer of Elian.

And, the foundation had a less visible presence at street level than the much less powerful Movimiento Democracia, led by Ramon Saul Sanchez. Mr. Sanchez was slammed in the head by a rifle butt in the raid.

''At this point it means that they, the hard-liners, do not have the monopoly on Cuban policy, do not have the influence they had,'' said Mauricio Font, director of the Cuba Project at the Graduate Center of City University of New York. But Mr. Mas Santos said the Elian case helped the exile's fight, because ''people now have a better understanding about what life is like in Cuba. Fidel's tyranny had been exposed.''

Gov. Jeb Bush, who insisted that family court should settle the issue, had no real presence in the case and should not be affected much by it one way or another. Political experts said Mr. Bush, a Republican, was supportive of exiles but was not bloodied because he was never a real factor in how the drama played out.

But votes, power and public opinion aside, Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, seems to have won the ultimate battle, for the child.

The United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit is expected to rule on May 11 on the Miami relatives' appeal of a lower court ruling that Elian, at 6, is too young to ask for a political asylum hearing.

Experts on immigration law and child psychology say that, with a 6-year-old boy, whoever exercises influence over him will ultimately win the custody battle, which is really what the asylum hearing is about.

''The power of persuasion is now in the hands of the father,'' said Pamela Falk, a professor of immigration law at the City University of New York. That, Professor Falk said, was why the government had to act so drastically to remove Elian from the Miami family.

The Miami family lost a child. Elian's father was without his son for five months. And Elian endured a nightmare when armed agents took him from the home and into the chaos of the street outside.

Fidel Castro, in a time when he needed a shot of power, has it now.

''Every three or four months, Fidel has a speech and talks about the same thing,'' Mr. Lugo said.

Elian's story has given him a passionate topic that appeals to the nationalism of the Cuban people.

He will talk about it, experts on Cuba said, forever.

Photos: Mayors Alex Penelas, of Miami-Dade County, above right, and Joseph Carollo, of Miami, left, earned praise and criticism; Ramon Saul Sanchez, top right, raised his profile as an activist, and Jorge Mas Santos of the Cuban American National Foundation, below, saw his power ebb. (Photographs by Associated Press);(Laura Kleinhenz/Saba); Federal marshals on all-terrain vehicles preparing to patrol the Wye River conference center in Maryland, where Elian Gonzalez is staying. (Pool photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais)